Welcome Lorelei Leigh Silva-Jameson

Okay, so my last post was about no baby yet. Turned out I may have jinxed myself, as just after midnight I was awoken by Amanda to tell me that her water broke.

So we check into the hospital at about 1 am Thursday morning. Amanda just wasn't having contractions and with her water broken, they really wanted to get labor started, so they put her on Pitocin around 3am. By about 7 am they gave her some pain medication, then around 11am they gave her an epidural. But the problem was she still wasn't dialated enough. It wasn't until somewhere around 8pm that she really started active labor.

Oh. My. God.

It was horrible to see her in such pain, even through the epidural. Not to mention I could see everything. Let me tell you, seeing childbirth changes your impressions of the female anatomy. I'll leave it at that.

But then, at 9:56pm Thursday night, January 17th, 2008, Lorelei Leigh Silva-Jameson was born. She was 7 pounds and 12 ounces and 20 and 1/4 inches long. And just beautiful.

Unfortunately, that morning when the pediatrician checked her out, she had become jaundiced and more than she was comfortable with. So under a sun lamp in an incubator she went. Early Saturday morning, they took her to the nursery to go under two sun lamps. It was heartrending. We couldn't hold her or even touch her, she had to be under the lamps to help get rid of the jaundice. She had to even stay for an extra night at the hospital, which was even worse.

But she's home. As of Tuesday, she had already gained two ounces (which is a really good sign for a newborn) and her jaundice scores were well down and the pediatrician gave her a clean bill of health.

She's quite active for a newborn and she opens her beautiful eyes so wide and she seems like she's really trying to see and understand everything. Being the proud papa, I think this is a good sign of her obviously high intelligence...

I'll have to write more about being a daddy later. It's an amazing experience and it's only beginning.

Still no baby...

Despite what the ticker is saying above, no, she hasn't arrived.

I'm starting to get the feeling when I talk to people that they aren't really sure I was telling the truth about having a baby soon. You know, the whole thing of "no, really, I'm telling the truth, it'll happen any second now!"

Like when you were in the second grade and told all your friends that Mickey Mouse was gonna come to your birthday party or something.

I know it's all me, all my perceptions, but still, it's a bit weird.

The apartment is as ready as it'll ever be, the car is loaded up with what we need so we don't have to waste time packing, my sub plans are written for the rest of the month, it's all ready. Now we're just waiting for Lorelei to make her grand entrance and she's being stubborn and refusing to show!

Her due date was last friday, the 11th. I know it's very common for first time mothers to go past their due date. And the ultrasound and fetal heart rate check on Monday showed everything was fine. I'm kinda worried that Amanda hasn't had hardly any contractions of any kind though. The longer this goes on, the more worried I get that she'll have to be induced or even deliver via cesearean. Neither of us really want that.

I'm starting to lose sleep over this (not like Amanda who gets up every hour to go to the bathroom) and I'm really feeling it in my back. Of course, Amanda can now barely walk, so she automatically trumps any complaint I have.

I'm just ready to be a daddy and I just want everything to go nice and smooth and the longer things go, the more time I have to worry...